


Unwound

by shybird



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Chronic Pain, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Massage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 05:24:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5035546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shybird/pseuds/shybird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between apprenticing under Dr. Strange, studying for his graduate program, fighting alongside the Young Avengers, and the usual obligations life requires, Billy doesn’t rest a whole lot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unwound

**Author's Note:**

> Little, itty-bitty drabble! Twenty-three year old Billy and Teddy livin' their lives.

The aches and tension in Billy’s back suddenly hit him ten fold the second he finally manages to lay down. Every stressor of the day, the week, the month, all collapse onto his spine but don’t seem to want to dissipate like he feels like they should. The pain isn’t swallowed by relief and his muscles don’t loosen leaving him able to finally get some sleep. He groans, shutting his eyes tight and debates _willing_ it away. He could, and he has frequently, wished the pain away but it never lasts long enough and always ends up hitting him harder the next day, as if it’s making up for lost time.

Between apprenticing under Dr. Strange, studying for his graduate program, fighting alongside the Young Avengers—and really, he thinks, they need to change their name since they’re all into their twenties now—and the usual obligations life requires such as seeing family and eating and paying bills, Billy doesn’t rest a whole lot. Even his nights, curled next to Teddy often end in nightmares or simply in sleepless stress while he agonizes over whether that fifteen page paper on relative physics is more or less important than learning about parallel universes with Dr. Strange.

It’s not just the daily stress that gets to Billy, however. His bones simply ache with the colder weather, muscles that were never strong to begin with knot up in frustration hourly. It’s one of the joys he’s known his whole life of being underweight. It’s days like this that he envies Billy’s shapeshifting and Steve Roger’s serum. What he wouldn’t give for his bones and muscles to act properly just for a couple of days.

Tommy faces a lot of the same chronic pain, Billy learned a couple of years ago. It’s much less, of course, with his accelerated healing and general sportiness, but they still have the same jutting bones and lithe builds that don’t form enough muscle for their own good. It was Tommy actually who gave him the idea to wish the pain away, and it was without a doubt the most addicting thing he’d ever used his magic on.

His brain turns over a thousand things as he lays on the bed, trying to drive his aching body from his mind. He takes a breath and starts making a list— _rent is due next week, electricity was raised ten dollars, Strange wants to bring me to the mesosphere on Thursday for training like what!!, essay due Friday, muscles hurt like hell, dinner at parent’s house tomorrow, team meeting Saturday, Tommy staying in the guest room next week, probably is going to bring a stray dog or a guinea pig or something, want spine to stop hurting, pretty sure there’ll be a press conference from AIM attack soon, I want the pain to stop, need to carve out time for the new Star Wars movie because come on, I want the pain to stop, buy groceries that are actually green, I want the pain to stop, I want the pain to stop, I want the pain to stop, I want the pain to stop, I want—_

“Billy.”

Teddy’s voice jars him out of his stupor. He sits up on his elbows and snaps his mouth closed suddenly, realizing he had been mumbling aloud.

He sighs, rubbing a hand over his face— _haven’t shaved in a day, add that to the list_ —and falls back onto his back with a slight groan. “Sorry, didn’t mean to. Mind started wandering.”

“It’s fine,” Teddy says quietly from the doorframe. “Just don’t want you magicing yourself better when it only backfires a couple of hours later. You’re not Strange yet.”

Billy huffs out a laugh. “I know.” He knows the magic backfiring is all in his head too. Magic is all one big mind game, really, and he can warp reality to how he pleases right up until he stops believing it. He’s lived with the muscle and bone pain for so long, he expects it to come back and there’s no way around it until he has a better grasp on his powers. He’s getting there, though. Not yet, not even at twenty-three, but he’s getting there.

The mattress dips when Teddy scoots onto the bed and he pushes and shoves lightly at Billy until he’s sitting up. “There are better ways of dealing with your back pain anyway.”

“You throwing shade at my magic?” Billy asks, tossing a smirk over his shoulder as Teddy situates himself behind him.

“All I’m saying,” Teddy says, returning the smile. He helps Billy out of his sweatshirt and t-shirt before laying his hands on Billy’s shoulders. “Is that we’ve saved the world by making out. Pretty sure I can handle saving you a bit of pain by giving you a massage.”

Billy hums as Teddy begins pressing his thumbs into his muscles, up and down his spine, behind his shoulder blades. He digs his knuckles into the knots that always form along the left side of Billy’s spine. It doesn’t entirely relieve the pain, but the spots Teddy works over leave him with a relaxed ache, rather than tense, unhappy muscle.

Teddy's hands move from his back and slowly work into his neck, to the base of his skull. Every drag of his hands leaves Billy just a little more relaxed and the moment Teddy moves his hands to the base of his spine, Billy's sure if he could melt, he would do it right then and there. The aches are dissipating and his whole body has gone lax.

Despite Teddy running his hand along his back and the happy sighs and groans that are making their way out of his throat, Billy’s mind still unintentionally wanders back to their schedules. Teddy’s working at a publication house and almost always has illustration and advertising to work on at home. He’s on salary but it’s still not as much as they should be paying him. Strange is paying him to do busywork under the apprenticeship, and it’s a fair sum considering he doesn’t have the time to work with him much.

He’s calculating out how much they’ll have left over after rent when Teddy smacks him lightly across the head.

“Stop it!” Teddy shakes him lightly from behind and Billy whirls his head around to glare at him. “I can literally hear that little hamster in that head of yours _dying_ from running in his wheel too long!”

“That little hamster is just fine, thank you very much!” Billy sasses back, but he takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly and forces himself to relax. Teddy’s hands are back on him anyway, working just a little rougher than before.

“The more you stress out, the worse your pain is. Seriously, take a break, just for the night, Bee. You don’t have anything pressing tomorrow, right?” Billy opens his mouth to retort, but Teddy just pushes his thumbs into a knot a little harder and whatever he had meant to say turns into a moan. “I can answer that for you: no, you have nothing pressing due tomorrow. You’re going to take a bath, I’m going to make you hot rum, and you’re going to sleep before one o'clock.”

It’s tempting as all hell, Billy thinks, but even if he could just empty his mind, despite the massage, the dull pain would still be enough to keep him awake. His mind immediately turns to his magic and he can feel a couple odds and ends levitate for a quick second before he stamps that thought process down. No more wishing the pain away. Teddy’s hands are a far better alternative, he thinks with a grin.

“Okay,” Billy says finally. “Okay, that sounds good.” He doesn’t point out that there’s at least a fifty percent chance that something will attack the city tonight and those plans will be ruined. He doesn’t mention he has an exam with both Strange and the university in a couple weeks. He pushes those thoughts down as hard as he pushes down the idea of magicing his pain away.

“Good,” Teddy agrees and kisses him on the shoulder.

Billy flips around then to properly kiss him, snaking his arms around Teddy’s neck. “’Course that’s only if you join me in all of those endeavors.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way, Bee.”

It still takes him some time, but he does manage to turn the stress levels down, if not all the way, and the pains in his bones lessen with every little step that night.


End file.
